Early in his literary career Balzac knew Baron Gerard, and in writing to the painter, sent greetings to Madame Gerard.  Much later in life, while posing for his bust, made by David d’Angers, he saw Madame David frequently, and learned to like her.  He felt flattered that she thought he looked so much younger than he really was.  On his return from St. Petersburg, in 1843, he brought her a pound of Russian tea, which, as he explained, had no other merit than the exceeding difficulties it had encountered in passing through twenty custom-houses.

   LA COMTESSE VISCONTI—­MADAME DE VALETTE—­MADEMOISELLE KOZLOWSKA

“Madame de Visconti, of whom you speak to me, is one of the most amiable of women, of an infinite, exquisite kindness; a delicate and elegant beauty.  She helps me much to bear my life.  She is gentle, and full of firmness, immovable and implacable in her ideas and her repugnances.  She is a person to be depended on.  She has not been fortunate, or rather, her fortune and that of the Count are not in keeping with this splendid name. . . .  It is a friendship which consoles me under many griefs.  But, unfortunately, I see her very seldom.”

Madame Emile Guidoboni-Visconti, nee (Frances Sarah) Lowell, was an Englishwoman another etrangere.  Balzac shared the same box with her at the Italian opera, and in the summer of 1836, he went to Turin to look after some legal business for the Viscontis.  He had not known them long before this, for he writes, in speaking of Le Lys dans la Vallee:  “Do they not say that I have painted Madame Visconti?  Such are the judgments to which we are exposed.  You know that I had the proofs in Vienna, and that portrait was written at Sache and corrected at La Bouleauniere, before I had ever seen Madame Visconti."[*]

[*] La Bouleauniere was the home of Madame de Berny, at Nemours. 
    Balzac visited Madame Hanska at Vienna in the spring of 1835.

Either this new friendship became too ardent for the comfort of Madame Hanska, or she heard false reports concerning it, for she made objections to which Balzac responds: 

“Must I renounce the Italian opera, the only pleasure I have in Paris, because I have no other seat than in a box where there is also a charming and gracious woman?  If calumny, which respects nothing, demands it, I shall give up music also.  I was in a box among people who were an injury to me, and brought me into disrepute.  I had to go elsewhere, and, in all conscience, I did not wish Olympe’s box.  But let us drop the subject.”

The friendship continued to grow, however, and in December, 1836, the novelist offered her the manuscript of La vieille Fille.  He visited her frequently in her home, and on his return from an extended tour to Corsica and Sardinia in 1838 he spent some time in Milan, looking after some business interests for the Visconti family.